New Escapologist: April 2020
Time Enough At Last
Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone.*
Ahem. Sorry about that. Greetings, one and all. I hope you're well and coping okay. How have you been using the lockdown?
I've been using the time to "go deep" in the David Cane sense. As well as tinkering away on my usual projects, I've been catching up with old films (in a way I once recommended in the Idler), reading books from the back of the queue (since I can't go to the library), and trying to think up genuine solutions to non-urgent problems for myself and others.
In the film category, I've been watching a lot of Studio Ghibli. I remember seeing their Howl's Moving Castle (2004) in the cinema on its release, being blown away by it and vowing to watch more. Obviously, I didn't. Until now. They're wonderful but Whisper of the Heart (1995) is probably the best (and Howl's Moving Castle, which I re-watched, is unbeatable too). Beyond Japanese animation, Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (2017) is very good and I should probably have just trusted the hype around that one.
In books, I've been reading the sort of thing that has haunted my bookshelves for a few years, unappetising for various reasons and out of line with my current interests but still surrounded by an ermine cloak of obligation. I "should" read them because they were a well-meaning gift or because an opinion from me might make someone happy. In the interests of minimalism and psychological bandwidth, I was on the verge of taking them to the charity shop just as the lockdown was called. I'm not going to recommend any of them here except for Whisky Galore (1947) by Compton Mackenzie. I should have read this ages ago because it's Mackenzie's most famous book and I see him as a sort of kindred spirit. An English-born but widely-accepted-as-Scottish humorist, I feel probably have a lot to learn from him. But anyway, it's a good and very cheeky book and I'll doubtless post some quotes from it soon to the blog.
In terms of "trying to come up with genuine solutions to non-urgent problems," I have some thoughts around what one person can do to help the environment in a more active way than simply reducing your impact and without inadvertently causing more pollution and expending more energy in doing so. But this email is already a monster, so I'll save this for the blog, perhaps in a week or so as a long-promised wade into Green Escapology.
Anyway, that's enough of my arrogant and unsolicited cultural recommendations. Let's get on with the show. Do you too have "time enough at last?" to go deep on reading and film-watching and thought? How are you using your Escapological skills to cope and/or help others? Let me know by replying to this email.
Robert Wringham
New Escapologist
Come Lunch Break, He Wasn't There
Oh, this is fun. A forum thread of clever, grumpy comedy fans discussing times they (and others) have quit jobs in style.
A terminally unemployed mate who finally decided to join the rest of us at the only place nearby that was offering paid work at the time, a huge greenhouse growing tomatoes, aubergines and the like. We were very encouraged that he had taken this important step and confident that it would be the springboard that set him on the right path in life.
Day one: morning break, he was in the corner of the canteen almost scratching his entire face off as his various skin complaints had flared up in the heat and turned his head into a giant flakey raspberry.
Day one: lunch break, he wasn’t there. I later found out he got stung on the arse by a wasp and told his line manager to go and fuck himself.
Another poster gives us an additional link to even more stories of gorgeous walk-outs:
I worked […] at a mismanaged grocery chain that is now out of business. I was a cashier but they had a 16-year-old girl working behind the fish counter (which was illegal) and who was not being paid properly for the work she was doing (because she wasn’t supposed to be doing it!).
On Sunday, the beginning of the pay period, she clocked in, wrote I QUIT in cod, haddock, and tilapia filets in the seafood counter, and clocked out. She framed a photo of her masterwork and her last paycheck for $2 and hung it in her bedroom.
The Point of Retiring
My (happily retired) mother-in-law in Canada sends me an article from the “Seniors” section of the Montreal Gazette:
here’s to the bone idle life. It will surprise you how little guilt you feel, how easy it is to dismiss the non-believers. Because doing nothing might be the best thing you never thought you’d do.
Apparently, there’s an increasing expectation placed on those ready to retire either not to do so (to cling on to their career and paycheque for as long as possible) or to stay economically active through world travel or other costly consumerist joys.
The writer of the piece rightly encourages her fellow seniors to ignore this expectation and to retire fully by embracing “the bone idle life.”
Oh, there is the morning routine of coffee and newspapers at the local café. The visits with Mom, who is 93 and still doing daily floor exercises. There are pies to bake, documentaries to watch, beaches to stroll, books to finish, family to spoil, sales to shop.
And really, wasn’t that the point of retiring?
Couldn’t agree more, could we, Ecapologists?
Five-Oh, Two-Oh, One-Six, Oh-Oh
Another thrilling escape story from the “fuck you and your job” forum thread:
I stormed off upstairs, put on my jacket and strode out of there. [The supermarket check-out manager] spotted me walking out and appeared concerned, saying, “He’s leaving, he’s leaving.”
I received a call and voicemail from the admin staff, asking to come back because I hadn’t clocked out. I officially left the following day.
Funnily enough, I was in there last week and noticed most of the tills have been replaced by self-service checkouts; they possibly added few more since the penultimate time I was there (about a year ago). I think there originally were about twelve tills, now it’s four.
The tills were fucking tedious. Relentlessly scanning food along over and over for several hours was a nightmare. If an item wouldn’t scan through on more than one attempt, the alternative was to type in a 30-digit code as an impatient customer stared at me. This put enough pressure on me to mistype the fucker and start again.
I give this story a special mention to lend slight additional credence to my (rightly) disputed claim that supermarket checkout work is horrible and deserves be automated into oblivion.
The poster’s remark about having to manually type the illegible barcode numbers? I am no stranger to that. A notable occurrence of this embarrassing form of workplace torture involved the Cadbury[‘s] Creme Egg.
Unless something has changed in the fifteen or so years since I worked a cash register, the barcode of a Creme Egg cannot be scanned on account of the foil-wrap packaging being all crinkly and deformed, and the product itself being, well, egg-shaped.
The barcode number for a Cadbury’s Creme Egg is 50201600. I vividly remember this number (“Five-Oh, Two-Oh, One-Six, Oh-Oh”) from having to type it into the cash register manually some thousands of times. It is tattooed on my brain. It is a scar. I wonder if I could sue the company for an on-the-job injury?
Occasionally, when I’m in a shop, I pick up one of these sludge-filled ovoid sweetmeats and peek at the barcode, weirdly nostalgic to confirm that the number is still the same after all these years.
And blimey, look. I’m not alone!
The Conscientious Objector
Something I like about the Tiny House videos on YouTube is the diversity of the stories being told. People who end up building or buying these tiny houses all come to it from different directions.
(In fact, this was something I used to like about New Escapologist as a magazine too. We’d receive writing from stock marketeers and dumpster divers, digital evangelists and technophobe shed dwellers: all arriving at the crossroads of magazine with the idea of escaping The Trap).
With the Tiny House movement, some people arrive through misfortune, others are choosing it proactively. Some have arrived because they’re 25 and don’t want to embark on a life of Wage Slavery, while others have already lost thousands of hours to it and have sold up in favour of cash in the bank and early retirement.
Others (my secret faves) arrive on points of ecological principle. They usually build homes from trash to make a point about waste or build an off-grid home to absent themselves from the ecologically costly business of work and consumerism.
The woman in this video has set up (for barely any money) an ecohouse and completely escaped. It’s extreme but she’s clearly happy and, like the hermits and vagabonds I mentioned in Escape Everything!, she demonstrates to us that something is possible. We don’t have to live lives of quiet despair if we’re determined and resourceful and clever, and when we open our hearts to what others would see as radical but is in fact something closer to the natural state.
I admire her attitude and worldview even more than what she’s achieved materially. She describes the world of work and consumerism not as “the real world” but as “The Madness – because it’s not real,” and she says it with admirable and clearly-tested conviction.
She also describes herself as a “conscientious objector to so many things.” I’ve never quite seen it put that way before, but it’s correct, isn’t it? One can say, “I will not be a part of this,” and then, peacefully, quietly… go.
Letter to the Editor: Driving Around with my Girlfriend
You know I'd never recommend private car ownership as a form of escape (I hate cars and advocate walking everywhere), but the fact remains that many people have made a good break this way. Think of Jacob Lund Fisker who lived in an RV while accumulating the capital for his escape through financial wizardry or the Tiny Home people who adapt a van or a bus or build a portable trailer to sustain a free way of life. Here's one reader of New Escapologist who has a car at the centre of his post-work life:
Hi Robert,
I don’t know if you can still remember me but we started the last year together at S’s New Year’s Eve party and had a short but great conversation about the possibilities of living a free life. You might know me as the German gypsy with the mustache!
When I was back in Germany after our meeting I immediately got your book. It was a lot of fun to read and you write with a great style. It encouraged me to do what I had planned to do anyway: quit my job, buy an old camper van and drive around with my girlfriend.
I’d also like to have more time to realize the dream that you have already made come true: to write books (I’m working on it). I also mean to make more music again. And to teach people in workshops the method of mindfulness, which is very valuable for me to gain inner freedom and enjoy life.
I wanted to say thank you for the energy that your book and our meeting gave me back then. I now live with my girlfriend in an apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg (when we are not travelling with our camper van).
Best regards,
O.
That's all for another month. See you in May. Oh! My new book, The Good Life for Wage Slaves, came out in Germany TODAY. Please buy it if you live in Germany or Austria or can otherwise read (or are learning to read) this beautiful language.
The book will also be published in the English language in August for the rest of us. I received the cover art a couple of days ago and it's amazing. I hope to have a pre-order link up and running by the next newsletter.
Stay healthy please, Robert Wringham
www.newescapologist.co.uk